Dr Natalie Banner is the Lead for Understanding Patient Data (UPD), an initiative hosted at the Wellcome Trust in the UK to support better conversations about how patient data is used for care and research. UPD works with patients, charities and health professionals to champion responsible uses of data, feeding into policy development, creating accessible resources and horizon scanning for emerging issues that may affect public confidence in the use of health data. This includes exploring emerging data-driven technologies and how to create the right ethical and governance frameworks for these in healthcare and research.

Natalie formerly led Wellcome’s policy work on GDPR and data protection, seeking to ensure UK legislation and regulation creates a supportive, trustworthy environment for health research using patient and health-related data. Prior to joining Wellcome, Natalie was a postdoctoral research fellow in the philosophy of psychiatry at King’s College London.